I’ve had a few readers mention they are really upset that my novels mention AI, aka artificial intelligence, so I wanted to clear some things up (even though those people will never see this, but hey, it makes me feel better).
The AI Hate
Understandably, many in the author and reader community are upset about AI as there are people using it to write books, make covers etc. And I get it. And my books are absolutely not written by AI. Firstly, because I like writing, and secondly, AI writing mostly sucks for books, in my humble opinion. I used to work as an advertising writer, and tons of jobs were lost to AI. So I get the hate. AI took, in my opinions, the less creative ad jobs, like writing fifty versions of a banner ad for a phone network. Our network is the strongest. Our network is four times stronger than our competitors. Our network is… you get it. And before you get mad that I experimented with using AI as an ad writer, my agency MADE US. They bought their own self-contained version of it for us to use. I even had a producer want to use an AI voice for legal copy in a radio ad. And I was like well I feel bad for our legal VO guy, but I guess that’s where we are. But of course, SAG flipped out on him and he backed off (which I was happy about). Don’t get me wrong, being an ad writer is hard as hell. And there are plenty of ad writing jobs AI can’t or at least should not do. I tried to have it write a few thirty-second commercials, and they were hilariously bad. I tried to help it write a tricky banner assignment for me, and it wrote me a mediocre country song. AI is inherently derivative which is the opposite of what ad writers who are actually trying to write good, creative commercials, do. They strive for originality. But most clients are scared of originality so most of those commercials never make it on air and are probably loving using cheap AI to write boring, generic ads. Meh.
AI Does Not only Apply to Writing and Image Creation
My books have geeky tech and/or finance guys in them because I married one. He works in ad tech, and his company uses a crap load of AI. Even before the generative AI revolution, they used other, less powerful forms of AI. Why? That was the only way their company could work. The company scans social media content and helps filter out inappropriate content for advertisers, so companies like Disney doesn’t even up running an ad next to someone getting their head chopped off. They catch horrible illegal content and help get them offline, too. They used to try to have people scan the content, and those people got PTSD from watching horrible, traumatizing videos all day, seriously. Not to mention an army of people could never keep up with the millions of pieces of new content being uploaded everyday. AI is everywhere now, not just the AI slop writing and images. It’s being used for medical discoveries and to catch criminals and to fight wild fires and a million other positive things. It’s being used in super bad ways too, like taking real people’s images and creating fake and innapprooriate images and videos. Even if you find the good uses for AI not worth it, it’s too late. Pandora’s box has been opened. AI is not going away. For better or for worse, it’s here. Not discussing it won’t make it go away. You probably used a bunch of AI just to get to this blog without even meaning to. Practically ever company has incorporated it somehow at this point. Treating AI like mentioning it exists is offensive is a bizarre take to.
Does AI Contribute to Climate Change, and Does that make my Characters Hypocrites?
AI uses a lot of energy, and absolutely can contribute to climate change if that energy is powered by gas, coal, or other non-green energy sources. One of the main focuses of my books, and something that is happening in real life, is the use and expansion of green energy sources for AI and any other energy needs. The main character of the Girl and the Geek uses naturally occurring geothermal energy to power his server farms. Which means it’s absolutely not contributing to climate change. Other energy sources, such as solar and, in the free bonus scene you get when you sign up for the newsletter, wind turbines, are also mentioned. I hope and dream for green energy to be the main source of energy in the future, which is why I write about it in my books.